Roland: Roland blows his saxophone

About the scene and clip:
Roland blows his horn to call Charlemagne. The performer plays his saxophone; he composed the music, based on a medieval-style melody composed by Edward Green, a doctoral candidate in Music at New York University and a professional composer.

About the work:
La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland) is one of the great masterpieces of French medieval literature. The earliest surviving version of this anonymous epic dates apparently from the late 11th century and is preserved in a famous manuscript now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. This classic version—there were numerous others—is composed in laisses (or stanzas) of variable length with ten-syllable lines in assonance (the final vowel is the same within each laisse). Epics like the Roland were originally sung by jongleurs, often with vielle accompaniment. The Roland tells of the Emperor Charlemagne’s great struggle to conquer Spain from the Muslim Infidels. It recounts the betrayal of the French by the traitor, Ganelon, resulting in a great battle at Roncevaux. There, the French rearguard, led by Roland, defeats the Moors, but all the great French knights—the twelve peers—die. Charlemagne avenges the peers in two great battles, and Ganelon is punished. At the end, Charlemagne is called by the angel Gabriel to a new mission.

About the genre:
The epic is an ancient genre and is found in almost every culture. It is a long heroic narrative which tells of war and great deeds. Epics are generally composed in verse, and sung from memory or improvised in performance by professional performers with instrumental accompaniment. These narratives are created from traditional elements, commonly without recourse to writing, by poets whose names are often unknown to us. Among the famous traditional epics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, attributed to Homer; the Anglo-Saxon Beowulf; and the Old French Song of Roland. Many known poets adopt epic forms and themes for their literary verse (such as Virgil in his Aeneid).

About the edition/translation:
The Song of Roland, translated from the Old French by Dorothy L. Sayers, Penguin, 1957, laisse 134, pp.119ff. French: La Chanson de Roland, ed. Ian Short, Paris, Lettres gothiques, 1990.

About the performer/ensemble:
Joe Esposito is a student in Dramatic Literature in the College of Arts and Science at New York University (2006)—and a musician.

About the production:
This performance was created for “Acting Medieval Literature,” taught by Prof. Timmie (E.B.) Vitz in fall 2006. It was filmed at New York University’s Maison Française in spring 2007.